In Georgia, parliament has passed a constitutional amendment. According to Civil.ge the amendment states that a Georgian-born citizen of an EU-member state, who “has permanently lived in Georgia for last 5 years”, will be eligible to stand for election.

The sole purpose of the amendment, as reported by Civil.ge is to allow the leader of the Georgian Dream–Democratic Georgia opposition coalition, Bidzina Ivanishvili, to stand in parliamentary elections later this year, as well as in the presidential election next year. Ivanishvili has French citizenship. Therefore, as things stood, he could not stand for election.

The story is more complicated, needless to say. Ivanishvili is a very rich businessman who lost his Georgian citizenship last year after he announced he was forming a new party to rival President Saakashvili’s ruling party. This looked like a blatant attempt to stop a potentially popular rival from challenging Saakashvili.

On the surface it would see as if the constitutional amendment rectifies the situation and shows that Georgia, unlike some of its neighbours, allows a free opposition.

However, Ivanishvili has not welcomed the amendment and says that he will not stand. In effect, he wants President Saakashvili to go back on his decision to strip him of his citizenship in the first place

All in all, there is a tense political game going on in the run up to the upcoming electoral cycle.